Tuna salad, smoked salmon salad deluxe ++

A Nicoise salad seemed just the thing for the warmest day I've enjoyed since October. 21 degrees. Amazing.

I had everything I needed except olives. I could've gone to the supermarket on my way home and bought some, but I wanted a gin and tonic on the roof terrace instead. Wouldn't you?

As I built the salads - a mix of iceberg and cos, spring onion, radish, little tomatoes, some blanched green beans and little pieces of boiled potato - I decided I'd make a tuna mayo mix, rather than just chunking up tuna from a tin. I mixed tinned tuna with good mayonnaise, lemon juice, salt and pepper, a little finely chopped spring onion, and the last of a jar of a harissa pesto I had in the fridge.

I spooned dollops of the mayo mix on top of the salad, and finished each plate with a just-past-jammy egg that I cut in two. I decided little slices of pickle could take the place of olives.

I was proud of my work.

The salads looked a bit like those plastic models of food that they make in Japan. They looked a bit like the kind of tuna salad you might get in an American diner, too. Not that I've ever been to an American diner.

I decided that we needed triangles of buttered white toast with our salads to make it really feel like an American diner dinner.

I knew what Phil would say when we sat down to eat. I knew he'd say that these salads reminded him of the smoked salmon salads my mum makes. And I knew he'd comment on her salads being more generous than mine. "We'd have had four eggs if Claire made these," he said.

It's true. That's why we call Mum's smoked salmon salads "Smoked Salmon Salad Deluxe Plus Plus."

Mine is just American Diner Tuna Mayo Salad. Maybe American Diner Tuna Mayo Salad Plus - the ‘plus’ because it was delicious.